Tuesday, 11 March 2014

LA CAGE AUX SPORT ~ Montreal QC

JUNE 2013

On the night before my conference started, I had been sight seeing in Old Montreal, a collection of hundreds of years old buildings, cobblestone walk ways and a vibrant restaurant scene with a vibrant history to boot.

So I went to a pub.

A sports pub. A big chain in fact. I had heard about La Cage aux Sports before as a provincial chain that was known for their wings. So I wanted to see what they could do, in a historical setting. Seems legit, right?

This place was huge inside, with an patio, an indoor patio, main room, side rooms and a 2nd floor. And it was EMPTY the night I was there. I was sat were there is a giant screen with sports of some sort and what made it weird was how quiet it was. I mean the volume was next to nothing, and nobody was talking or socializing, just staring up at the screen. It was a bit unsettling.

I was hungry so I got 2 smaller orders of wings, with a side potato skins, because I hadn't had potato skins in forever.

The potato skins ($4,99 for 3) were, ok. I'm pretty sure they are a frozen product. The skins were soft and not very crispy. Cheese and bacon were ok too, but nothing special here. At least it was chopped up bacon and not faux bits. But too much potato and not enough skin.

The wings were ... underwhelming visually when they arrived. They come in orders of 4, 8 or 16. Since I was in a sampling mood, I just went with 4.

These were tiny wings. Tiny. I think the one in the photo above was the biggest. The wings are deep fried, so at least the skin was kind of crispy, in a way that they can get crispy when baked. There was some charring on the wings which made for something to define this wing.

There are 7 different sauces, and I didn't go for unique but 911 and Uppercut.

OK that photos says buffalo, but really that is 911. 911 sounds like it should be crazy hot, but it's not.

I think it's a buffalo style sauce made with Tabasco, which is unusual and does not make for a definitive flavour. Actually, there was barely any sauce so you really couldn't get a good sense of what was going on.

Uppercut is their supposedly spicy hot wing. It too was not hot.

These wings were at least saucy, and you got more of a traditional hot sauce flavour from them. But barely.

FINAL SCORE: There is no love in these wings. These are a product sold by a corporation. The potato skins were not well done either. Overall, thumbs down for La Cage aux Sports for me. 4.5/10